Thursday, July 6, 2023

Nuru-kan Sato

帰省中、母・妹とともに熱海へ一泊旅行へ出かけました…。

まずは国電津田沼駅までやってきて…。
総武横須賀線を待っていますので、成田エクスプレスには乗車できません。

この後やってきた快速で品川まで行ってから、新幹線へ乗り換えます。

午後3時のチェックイン少し前に熱海へ着くように、品川駅で昼食をとりました。
エキュート品川という「構内なのにビル状態」な施設のレストラン街にある居酒屋を見つけてありました。

この日は割と空いてました…。
夕方、アフターファイブのリーマンさん達が帰宅前にチョイ飲みしていくであろう居酒屋です。

でも、ランチタイムは蕎麦とか炊きたてご飯でランチを提供しているわけです。
店内は奥に広くて、こんな様子。

メニューを持ってきてもらって…
この後、ホテルの夕食がたっぷりなのを予想して、軽くざる蕎麦系統で済ませることにします。

食の細い母はざる蕎麦だけ。
こんだけでおなかいっぱいだそうです。ちゃんと栄養摂れてるか心配。

妹はざる蕎麦+天丼のセットにしました。
こんなです。これは美味しそうでした。

儂のは、ざる蕎麦にタレカツ丼のセットです…。
タレカツ丼ってなんだかイマイチ理解しないまま頼んで、届いて判った。トンカツに甘辛のタレで味付けてある。タレをつけてまた焼いたのかどうか判りませんが、カリカリで美味しかった。ざる蕎麦ともいい相性。

昼食を済ませたら… 新幹線ホームへ。
「こだま」って1時間に2本しか走ってなかった…。
「のぞみ」は1時間5本も走ってるのに。

少しだけある指定席へ行かないよう気を付けて乗り込んだら、こんなでした。
まぁ、この程度の有償顧客搭乗率じゃ、1時間に2本でたくさんなのかも。

品川から新横浜、小田原に停車したら、もう熱海です。三十数分で到着。
これって、新宿へ出てロマンスカーで箱根湯本へ行くよりも簡単かも。

梅雨入り前でお天気は冴えませんでしたが、駅前はこんな感じ。
すごく小さいときにやってきたら、旅館の名前の法被を着てのぼりを持った客引きが沢山いたけど… 今は皆無。

ホテル聚楽へ泊まりますが、駅から徒歩3分だっていうから、商店街を抜けて…
商店街は観光客向けなんだけど、アジのひらきとか烏賊とかを干してて、臭かった…。
漁村で育ったのでそれほどイヤでもないけど… ハエがたかっていないのが怖かった。

「ハエがいない… よっぽど殺虫剤撒きまくりか、ハエも寄らないほど不味いか」
「お兄ちゃん、聞こえるような大声の独り言はやめたほうがいいから…」

また妹に怒られました。正論を述べているつもりだったんですが…。

アーケードになった商店街を抜けたら、坂の下にホテルが見えました。
あれが今回一泊お世話になる『月の栖(すみか)熱海聚楽ホテル』です。

まだ2時半すぎたばっかりですが、すぐ風呂に入りたい母に急かされているので入館しました…。

3 comments:

  1. When I was in sixth grade, I have a memory of going to Izu Kyuko Shimoda with my parents and younger brother, passing through Atami Station. It seemed like it was my father's first time riding the Shinkansen, and he was surprised by its speed. Since we only transferred at Atami Station, I have never been outside the station premises to this day...

    First, there's Tsudanuma Station on the Sobu Main Line. It brings back memories, and I remember getting on and off there a few times... Oh, the recent Narita Express has this kind of appearance. After that, you took the rapid train to Shinagawa and then transferred to the Shinkansen, which took about 30 minutes to Atami. It's certainly easier than going to Hakone Yumoto from Tsudanuma, getting off at Shinjuku, and then taking the Romancecar. But from the perspective of a reader, the view from the Romancecar rushing through the grounds of T Gakuen is also hard to let go of.

    There's a tavern like this inside Shinagawa Station. Judging from the pictures, it definitely gives the feeling of a tavern where salarymen go for a quick drink before heading home after work. However, they also serve lunch with soba or freshly cooked rice. Well, at least it's much nicer than the cafe bar Muscat that you entered inside Okayama Station Shinkansen area.

    I didn't notice such a spot when I stayed at the Strings Hotel Tokyo InterContinental in April. However, what I felt at that time was that there seemed to be surprisingly few easily accessible restaurants around Shinagawa Station. Of course, it could just be my lack of observation skills.

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  2. Well, if it were me, anticipating a hearty dinner at the hotel later, I would probably just have a light breakfast and skip lunch.
    Your mother seems to have a small appetite, but given her age, it's quite impressive that she can finish a serving of zaru soba. You might be concerned about her nutritional intake since she gets full on just zaru soba, but I'm jealous because my own mother, who is the same age as yours, can barely manage a single rice ball.

    So your sister had the zaru soba and tendon set? Seeing the portion of tempura on the soba, I can't help but think, "This is Kanto style," - does that make me a western Japan person? With this kind of set, is it the norm to have vegetable-based tempura with salt in the Kansai region, and seafood-based tempura with tentsuyu in the Kanto region?

    All I know about the menu item called "tarekatsudon" is that it's a soul food of Niigata. I'm not exactly sure why this dish is loved in the snowy region of Niigata.

    Yes, as you pointed out, the Tokaido/Sanyo Shinkansen departing from Tokyo Station has one "Kodama" service per hour to Shin-Osaka and Nagoya respectively, totaling two services, and one "Hikari" service per hour to Okayama, but the "Nozomi" service has two each per hour to Hakata and Shin-Osaka, and one to Hiroshima, totaling five services per hour. This means that the primary passengers for Central and West JR are those traveling between Tokyo, Yokohama, Nagoya, Kyoto, and Osaka, and while I apologize to passengers getting on and off at other stations, it's inevitable that there will be more passing trains.

    Returning to the topic of the train schedule, it's quite a feat to manage the Tokaido section timetable with the addition of occasional and seasonal trains. This is probably a kind of schedule management that other countries can't do. I've always thought that instead of building a Linear Chuo Shinkansen between Tokyo and Nagoya, they should build a second Tokaido Shinkansen like the Tomei or Meishin Expressway. Even a small disaster that stops the Tokaido Shinkansen can deal a major blow to Japan's economy, so it's necessary not just for increasing transportation capacity but also as a complement.

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  3. Looking at your pictures of Atami Station area, it seems to retain a faint atmosphere of a Showa era hot spring town. It also brings back memories of when I was very young, visiting hot spring area and seeing employees from the ryokan, dressed in happi coats with the inn's name, stuffing guests into microbuses emblazoned with the inn's name and departing one after another. Those scenes are likely nonexistent now, but looking back on them, they are nostalgic Showa memories that warm my heart.

    There seem to be quite a lot of accommodations named Hotel Juraku, aren't there? I didn't know there was one in Atami, but there are others in places like Shimoda, Ito, Minakami Hot Springs, and Iizaka Hot Springs. I'm not sure whether all of these accommodations belong to the same group or not. This Atami Juraku is said to be a three-minute walk from the station, so it must be considered one of the long-established businesses in Atami.

    I can't quite get a handle on the role Atami plays in the Kanto region, but in Kansai it would be Arima, wouldn't it? Both likely have a similar layout, with hotels, souvenir shops, and ryokan all jumbled together in a small area, leading up to a hillside where various inns and hotels are built. However, Atami is on the sea, while Arima is in the middle of the Rokko mountains, so the atmosphere in those respects must be different.

    It seems rather fun to go through the shopping street on the way to the ryokan. You were scared because there were no flies buzzing around the dried horse mackerel and squid sold in the shopping street.

    You; "No flies... Either they're heavily spraying insecticides, or it tastes so bad that not even flies will come near it."
    Your sister; "Big brother, you should stop talking to yourself out loud, people can hear you..."

    Once again, you were scolded by your younger sister. Maybe you were too loud, but I think you made a valid point...

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